Moonheart (33 page)

"Then I agree."

Sins'amin nodded, then clapped her hands together.

"This council is ended," she said.

Ko'keli's drum stopped abruptly. For a long moment Kieran sat watching the five masked figures who sat silently before him, then Ha'kan'ta nudged him.

"Now we go," she said softly.

"But they haven't said if they'd help me or—"

"The council was not concerned with whether or not it would help you," she replied. "Its concern was whether or not you were a threat."

"A threat? To what?"

Ha'kan'ta shook her head.

"Outside," she said. "There we can talk."

Kieran opened his mouth, then shut it so hard that his teeth clicked together. He stood up on stiff legs and followed Ha'kan'ta outside. Not until the doorflap had fallen back across the opening did they speak again.

"What happened in there?" Kieran asked.

"You were judged." She held up a hand to stop him from interrupting her. "Understand, Kieranfoy. Your craftfather is a drum-brother to the quin'on'a— but so was Taliesin, though in his case it was indirectly, through my father. Mother Bear will not abide blood strife between brothers-in-blood. When such occurs, she withdraws her sen'fer'sra— her spiritual vitality. Without that something-in-movement, the quin'on'a would die and my own people would be struck as if deaf and blind. Imagine yourself without your Wayfarer's taw, Kieranfoy."

"I don't even want to think about that."

"Exactly."

"But what I don't understand is, if Taliesin's dead, why are they so worried about what I might do to him?"

"Don't you ever listen?" Ha'kan'ta asked. She smiled to take the edge from her words.

"
Nom de tout!
I listen. It's just that nothing I hear makes any sense."

"I will repeat it one last time. In these worlds— what you call the Otherworld— the farther one gets from the World Beyond, the more enmeshed time and space become. Like the layers—"

"Of an onion. I know. Great analogy, only—"

"Only this: If you reach out for Taliesin Redhair strongly enough— you will reach him. But the distance you cross will entail a crossing of years as well as land. And if you were to kill him, if his blood was on the hands of Toma'heng'ar's craftson, it would be the same as though
we
had killed him. My father. The quin'on'a. Myself. All who are true kin or kin-in-drumming. And then we would suffer Mother Bear's judgment."

"So the council was held to see if I could be called off my hunt, is that it?"

"Yes."

Kieran frowned. "And what if I went right on ahead with it? What if I did kill Taliesin?"

"But you won't— not anymore. Not with what you know now."

"I suppose. I'll have to think about it some more, that's for sure. But what about Tom?"

"What Toma'heng'ar pursues is what the council have named Mal'ek'a. He may think he seeks Taliesin Redhair, but he will learn quickly enough when he confronts his thing of shadows just what it is that he faces."

"And what's that? What
is
Mal'ek'a?"

Ha'kan'ta sighed. "An old evil. That is all I know. An old evil from across the Great Water. I think perhaps it might well have its origin in the same homeland as both Taliesin and your craftfather, else why is it so bound to them? But we will see soon enough ourselves, Kieranfoy. Together we will see how Mal'ek'a deals with the Beardance of the rathe'wen'a."

"The council wouldn't help me, so why will you?"

"I have as good a reason as you to hunt Mal'ek'a, Kieranfoy. I told you my father was dead. I did not tell you that he died but a month ago when the tragg'a slew him."

An image of what the tragg'a were leapt from her mind to his and Kieran shivered.

"Why did they kill him?" he asked softly.

"They sought the medicine bag of Taliesin Redhair that my father held in trust for many a year."

"His medicine bag? But after all this time, it'd just be so much dust, wouldn't it?"

Ha'kan'ta touched the pouch that hung at her hip.

"This was my grandmother's," she said. "It is twenty long-summers old— two thousand years. Magics keep it whole— the something-in-movement of Mother Bear."

Kieran looked down at the pouch and then understood why Ha'kan'ta was helping him.

"Sara's pouch," he said. "It's Taliesin's, isn't it? But what does Mal'ek'a want with it?"

"Taliesin's medicines were very strong. Mal'ek'a wants something that was in that pouch and sent his tragg'a to fetch it for him. But my father no longer had it. He gave it Toma'heng'ar—"

"Who gave it to Aled Evans who, when he died, left it in his will to Sara's uncle. He stuck it in a box that sat around in the back of her store until she found it. Lord lifting Jesus!" Kieran shook his head. "But why now?" he asked. "Why, after so many years, would Mal'ek'a suddenly start looking for it?"

"Mal'ek'a was always evil," Ha'kan'ta said, "but not always as powerful as he is now. It is said that he had taken the wolverine as his totem and for that reason the tragg'a serve him, for they are the children of Darkness and the devil-bear."

"But..." Kieran was thinking aloud. "Sara left the pouch in her uncle's house. Mal'ek'a will have it by now, unless..." The memory of a gold sparkle on a small hand returned to him. "The ring," he said softly. "It's the ring he wants."

As they'd been talking, they'd wandered down by the lakeside. Kieran looked around, then back at the quin'on'a village. "Where is Sara anyway?" he asked.

Ha'kan'ta closed her eyes and turned her inner vision outward. She stood still for a long moment, then said: "Gone."

"Gone? Well, she can't have gotten far."

"Far enough," his companion said. "She has stepped beyond this world."

"Great," he thought. And she had the tobacco with her...

"She's gone home," a third voice said.

They both turned. Pukwudji sat hugging his knees on a nearby rock, a huge grin on his wide face and his eyes filled with a teasing light.

"Who in...?" Kieran began.

"Pukwudji Sarafriend," the little man said. "That's me, hey?"

"What have you done with her?" Ha'kan'ta asked sternly.

Pukwudji simply shook his head, refusing to be intimidated.

"He said she went home," Kieran said. "That must be Tamson House. In the World Beyond."

"I said home indeed." Pukwudji's grin grew broader still. "But home is where the heart is, hey? Do you know her heart well enough, O-would-be-bardkiller? Do you now?"

Kieran took a step towards the little man, but Ha'kan'ta drew him back.

"Remember we spoke of drum-brothers?" she said. "This honochen'o'keh was one of Taliesin's. The bard was loved by many." To Pukwudji she added: "Kieranfoy has sworn council-oath not to harm Taliesin."

Pukwudji shrugged. "Redhair could not be harmed by such a one as he, now could he?"

Kieran frowned. He couldn't remember swearing council-oath. Then he realized that among these people, one's words were taken at face value; by agreeing not to harm Taliesin unless he could prove the bard was Mal'ek'a, he'd as much as sworn an oath.

"No more riddles, Pukwudji," Ha'kan'ta said cajolingly. "Tell us where you sent her. Was it truly to the World Beyond? To her uncle's home?"

"She went," he said. "And where? Did I not say? Then I'll give you one more hint, but just the one and no more, hey? So listen closely: I sent her to meet my ownself so that I'd know enough to meet her here. How's that?"

"Pukwudji..." Ha'kan'ta began, but she was too late.

The little man tumbled off his perch, landed on his feet with a thump, and scampered between them, giving Kieran a pinch on the leg as he ran by. As he neared the lake, he leaped high into the air and did a somersault. By the time he hit the water, he'd turned into a silver-backed trout and disappeared into the lake.

Kieran frowned some more, rubbing his leg. Ha'kan'ta tried to keep a straight face, but failed. Her laughter was clear and sweet and, faced with it, Kieran could only join in.

"It has been many days," she said, when at last she caught her breath, "since I have had reason to laugh. Pukwudji!" she cried across the lake. "I give you thanks!"

Far from the shore, a trout leaped four feet out of the water and landed with a smack on the surface of the lake before vanishing once more. Ha'kan'ta shook her head, still smiling.

"Come," she said to Kieran. "It is time we were on our way."

"But Sara..."

"Is a grown woman. She can look after herself."

Their totem masks removed, Sins'amin and her War Chief remained behind in the council lodge long after the others had gone. Tep'fyl'in toyed with his wolf mask, the firelight gleaming on his strong features. He was the youngest elder— his coppery skin unwrinkled, his brow high and smooth, his small horns burnished and gleaming. "Strange use of a council," he said, laying aside his mask.

Sins'amin shrugged. "How so?"

"Such a judgment as we delivered could as easily have been made by one— and she our Beardaughter— as in full council."

"Kha. But think a moment, my Red-Spear. Of Taliesin."

"Taliesin?" he replied. "He drums with our ancestors. What thought does that require?"

Sins'amin smiled. "And yet, Kieranfoy brought with him a companion, and the bard lives now in her."

"You met her; we did not. Tell me, is it true? Has Redhair taken a craftdaughter?"

"Yes. The clasp on her cloak was a twin to his. And she wore his ring. But if final proof were needed, I offer this: Her eyes give my thoughts their truth. She grows her horns, and they are of Redhair's drumming."

"Ah. Then I understand. And you told Kieranfoy nothing..."

"Kha!"

Unspoken between them lay an old quin'on'a prophecy, a power dream thought misinterpreted when the bard did not take an apprentice before he died.

"Kieranfoy and Ha'kan'ta will not prevail against Mal'ek'a," Tep'fyl'in said. "A Beardance, even one Danced by the Drummers of the Bear, cannot prevail against him."

"Perhaps not." Sins'amin's eyes held distant lights. "But it will give Taliesin's craftdaughter time to grow her horns."

Tep'fyl'in smiled, but the humor never touched his eyes. What if the prophecy was wrong? If Taliesin's drumming was never passed on to another? What then? In the Mystery Realms that those in the World Beyond called the Otherworld, time was a strange and malleable thing. In this turn of time's whirlpool, Taliesin never took a craftdaughter and the bard himself was dead. That could change, if the herok'a Sins'amin spoke of grew her horns. But if she did not? Was it such a terrible evil that the quin'on'a had a creature such as Mal'ek'a against which they could test the strength of their bodies and the sharpness of their wit? A tribe was measured by its foes. Did not Mal'ek'a make the quin'on'a of the Bear Clan the mightiest of all the Clans?

But these thoughts he kept to himself.

"Kha," was all he said, his voice soft. "Understood, old mother."

Tucker's Buick headed a three-vehicle cavalcade that pulled up in front of one of the Patterson Avenue entrances of Tamson House. Before the Inspector stepped out of the car, he shook his head at Collins who was drawing his .45 Colt from its holster under his armpit.

"We're playing this one cool," Tucker said. "While we can. The last thing we need is to have the locals crawling all over us."

Collins shrugged and let the gun drop back into its holster. He shook out a Pall Mall and lit it as he followed Tucker to where Constable Warne was standing guard over a blanket-draped body. Two RCMP paramedics had already brought a stretcher out of the van behind Tucker's car and were laying it down beside the body. Two more constables disembarked from the third car.

"Hold it," Tucker said to the paramedics. He looked at Warne. "Give it to me from the top."

"There's not a whole lot to tell, Inspector," Warne replied. "It was going on 0900. I was out, stretching my legs, checking the doors on O'Connor and making my way back to the car, when that"— he indicated the body with a jerk of his head—"just... Jesus, I don't know. It just appeared there. I ran over, figuring the guy'd been tossed from one of the upper-story windows maybe, and then I saw..."

Warne's features seemed a little strained and Tucker knew what was playing through the Constable's head. However used to this line of work you got, there were some things that still hit you hard. Like when they'd brought in Thompson's body last night... Tucker figured he'd start to worry when it
didn't
bother him anymore.

"What'd you see?" Tucker prompted softly.

Warne frowned. "Did you ever pull a bear-mauling detail, Inspector?"

Collins kneeled down beside the body, but Tucker stopped him as he was reaching for a corner of the blanket.

"Anyone around?" Tucker asked. "Witnesses. Anything?"

"The street was empty," Warne said. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear the body just appeared out of nowhere."

Tucker sighed. "Figures. You talked to anyone in the House?"

"Just through the door. They say they'll only talk to you. They did throw out the blanket for me, when I asked."

Tucker looked up and down the street, then turned his gaze to the body. Steeling himself, he nodded to Collins. Warne looked away as Collins lifted the blanket. For a long moment there was silence, then Tucker swore.

"Christ, Warne. What're you trying to pull?"

Inspector?

Warne turned, looked from the mutilated corpse to his superior. The body was the same as it'd been before he'd covered it up. The head half twisted from the shoulders, chest cavity open and intestines spilling out onto the pavement. But Tucker... The Inspector's face was a hard mask. He stepped forward and lashed out at the corpse with his foot. When the leather of his shoe hit the body, Warne winced. The taste of breakfast came rushing up his throat. He started to say something, then saw a vague shimmer flit across the body. Instead of intestines, a lump of mud and twigs went flying under the impact of Tucker's shoe. Where the corpse had been there was only a matted mess of twigs and wet leaves, held together in the shape of a body by drying mud.